Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Colonial Baptists, over some 150 years of bloodied backs and prison time, played an instrumental role in establishing America as the world's first nation that, through governing structures, placed primary emphasis upon human rights, freedoms and welfare. To be certain, the ideals of our nation's founding fathers - in no small part inspired by Baptists' insistence upon full religious liberty and separation of church and state - are yet being worked out in the realm of reality: slavery was legal until the 1860s, racial discrimination was legal until the 1960s, gender discrimination was long a part of our nation's history, and to this very day the anti-American spirit of inequality remains embedded within the hearts, minds and souls of many Americans.

Much of American history has revolved around a narrative of individuals who were (and are) far more concerned with their own well-being than that of their fellow Americans. This pattern began in the colonial era, when established state churches (theocracies) respected only those who were of their particular religious faith. For this reason the heretical, liberal, radical Baptists were beaten, whipped, jailed and suffered many other persecutions at the hands of theocratic colonial governments. That Baptists emerged triumphant in the Revolutionary era is a testimony to their perseverance and their unselfish commitment to the championing of equal rights for all persons: their victory in securing America's founding as a secular nation committed to religious liberty for all and separation of church and state was a victory for all Americans. The colonial theocracies lost their power and control, and state churches could no longer use government to force religious compliance, as the United States Constitution created a nation of citizens with legal equal rights and privileges (with the exception of blacks and women, admittedly, for many years).

And yet ... in addition to, and alongside of, racial and gender issues, the colonial-era legacy of power and privilege that refuses to recognize the equality of citizens remains embedded within America.

The opening years of the 20th century witnessed the ascent of corporations to the seats of power and privilege formally occupied by colonial theocrats. By the 1930s, corporate leaders, playing to fears stoked by the Great Depression, convinced many American citizens that any government policies designed to further the "general welfare" of the citizenry as stated by the U.S. Constitution, were in reality attempts to turn America into a socialist or communist nation. This perverse misuse of the Constitution, spearheaded and stoked by corporate interests and fanned into flames by many (primarily) majority white citizens (including many conservative Protestant Christians) who feared immigrants and (later) opposed equal rights for blacks, in the ensuing decades erupted into full blown rage. Opposition (often violent) to Social Security (1935), minimum wage laws (1938), the Civil Rights Act (1964), and Medicare (1965) - all of which were enacted to further the general welfare and equality of all American citizens - was led (to varying degrees) by a combination of corporate interests and white religious indignation claiming (in each instance) that the legislation was either socialist or communist (or both).

While corporate America (increasingly aligned with white conservative Protestants) proved unable to prevent the enactment of the four landmark social legislation achievements noted above, by playing upon the fears of majority whites, corporations further consolidated power and control over America under the guise of free markets (with unfettered free markets held forth as the righteous alternative to godless socialism and communism). By the early 1970s, ongoing fear-fueled fallout from three decades of social legislation reached a tipping point as unfettered free market ideology gained enough influence and power within the national political sphere and on main street to nudge government toward redistribution of the nation's wealth to the rich. And by 1980, the final marriage of corporation, white conservative Protestantism, and federal government was consummated: Ronald Reagan served in the U.S. presidency and enacted policies further transferring the nation's wealth to the rich, while Jerry Falwell formally aligned the nation's white conservative Protestants with the morality-cloaked economic agenda of Reagan Republicans (in the 1960s, Falwell had opposed civil rights as a communist agenda; now he led the rising Religious Right to oppose the "communist" agenda of Democrats and religious liberals).

For the next three decades, corporate America ruled virtually unchecked, served by government. The era of far-reaching social legislation came to an end; government's championing of the "general welfare" of the citizenry was mothballed. White conservative Christians (many increasingly voicing theocratic overtones), having been convinced of the godliness of unfettered free markets, cheered as their money was redistributed to the wealthy, convinced that their Republican allies would reward them by enacting their religious agendas into federal law. The alliance of corporation, religion and government received an additional boost when in 1996 Republican strategist Roger Ailes formed the Fox News Channel to assist in the furtherance of the Corporate/Republican/Religious Right agenda.

And then along came Barack Obama, America's first black president, in 2009.

Immediately angry white Americans formed the "Tea Party" movement. Suddenly indignant over deficit spending (the trademark of Republican administrations from Reagan forward, and especially under George W. Bush) and tax increases (never mind that Reagan enacted the largest peacetime tax increase in American history), and claiming that Obama was a socialist and a communist - and Hitler reincarnate - and would ruin America through health care reform, the Tea Party movement set out to drive Obama out of office. The racist nature inherent within much of the white Tea Party movement is readily evident: they resort to the same arguments antebellum southern whites used in defending slavery (states rights and freedom only for themselves and like-minded persons) and they repeatedly put white supremacists front-and-center stage in their rallies (both local and national).

Now, with the passage of health care reform (a goal sought by U.S. presidents since Teddy Roosevelt), the hatred of large-scale government actions on behalf of the general welfare of the citizenry - a hatred with colonial precedent in the persecution of religious heretics such as Baptists, its antebellum expression rooted in defense of slavery, and 20th century expressions driven by corporately and religiously-stoked fears of socialism and communism - has again erupted full-scale.

In short, it has been a long, sordid journey to the present day where many white American Christians (including some national Southern Baptist leaders), now long married to unfettered capitalism and the extreme wing of the Republican Party and politically selfish-minded, are spewing anti-American hatred, venom and lies in their rage against health care access for all Americans.

Yet I am hopeful that David Leonhardt is right in his contention that putting an end to corporately-controlled rationed health care marks the beginning of pulling America out of its descent into third-world wealth-gap status, by reversing decades of economic stagnation and wealth redistribution to the rich, and refocusing government to serving the general welfare of all Americans.

And I want to believe that today's Baptists (in particular) who are at the moment so enraged that America once again is ready to serve all her citizens, will in a future cooler moment reflect upon their own faith heritage of championing equal rights for all, and recognize that selfish individualism is a barrier to America's greatness.

And what fantasies would that be? That separation of church and state in America never happened, and unfettered free markets are to be worshiped. Bradley and his allies even managed to censure Thomas Jefferson from Texas textbooks because Jefferson dared talk about separation of church and state.

Not surprisingly, historians and other observers are outraged that Bradley and his allies have emasculated American history in order to serve their own personal interests.

And what does Mr. Bradley have to say to those who object to his fantasies-in-action? “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” he declared. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

Mr. Bradley obviously has never heard of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which clearly establishes - thanks to the untiring efforts of our Baptist ancestors (and yes, they were liberals in their day) - the separation of church and state.

Every American who believes in the First Amendment should each claim the $1000 that Bradley offered to anyone who could locate separation of church and state in the Constitution. Beyond that, SOMEONE needs to introduce David Bradley to the U. S. Constitution, a document - his arrogant pronouncements notwithstanding - which is seemingly quite foreign to him.

"But wait," you say, Mr. Bradley? You mean that since the words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution, the concept does not exist? You only believe it if the exact wording is in the Constitution?

Ah, that is why you believe God does not exist! God is not mentioned in the Constitution ... and therefore God does not exist!

Well, Mr. Bradley, in secular America, you as an opponent of Baptists, worshiper of unfettered free markets, and apparent atheist, are free to practice your own peculiar fantasies, and even to label those fantasies as "Christian." And you're even free to try and draw others into your fantasy world. But if you insist on trying to force the government - local, state, or federal - to give favoritism to (and/or promote) your personal beliefs that you pass off as religion, those Baptists whom you've written out of the history books are gonna come back to haunt you one day.

And while in your constitutional world God does not exist, it is doubtful that your blindness and deafness to history is the last word about what is and what is not.